1. Discuss the socio-economic background of Language Movement.

How did it
influence in the emergence of Bengali nationalism subsequently?
Ans: ​There are many reasons behind the language movement of 1952. One of the
reasons is that East Bengal was economically and socially deprived from 1947-1952.
From this deprivation, from this anger, they broke out in protest in 1952. They think they
are being abused; Their wealth is being taken to West Pakistan and it has been
expressed in various ways. As a result, most of the people of East Bengal were forced
to engage in agricultural work as they were deprived of job opportunities. Moreover,
many Hindus from East Bengal migrated to West Pakistan with large sums of money. A
certain tax was taken from East Bengal to West Pakistan and as a result the economic
condition of East Bengal became much worse. All this happened between 1947-1952.
Due to all these the people of East Bengal became more and more angry. As a result,
the people of East Bengal cooperated in the language movement of 1952. If we notice
the result of this movement, it is that the feeling of the people of East Bengal has
become very strong. We are different from the Pakistani people, that is, we are
completely different from West Pakistan; Although we are Muslims, we are Bengalis;
Our culture-tradition is different from theirs. So, the linguistic nationalism that we have
has become strong and this linguistic nationalism is completely different from the
community thinking i.e. Pakistan is a communal state based on the religion that has
been created. But the thought-consciousness of the Bengalis of Bengal is a
language-based consciousness and it is non-communal. The non-communal thought
that arose in the minds of Bengalis was through the language movement.

In the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan, they adopted a resolution that two languages
​have been adopted in the debate in Pakistan, one is Urdu and the other is English.
Liaquat Ali Khan rejected the proposal of Birendranath Dutt on 25 February 1948 and
when the news reached Dhaka, the students of Dhaka started a strike on 26 and the
politically conscious society. Going beyond the politics of the Muslim League, new
organizations started forming, as a result of which we see that the Chhatra League has
been formed. Chhatra League was not formed as an organ of Awami League. Chhatra
League was born before the birth of Awami League. They formed a committee and on
behalf of this committee they called for a general strike, which had some arguments.
(i) Bengali was not recognized as the language of the Constituent Assembly
(ii) Pakistani currency, postage stamps, money orders have been made and Bengali
language is not written in them
(iii) If you wanted to give a job interview, it could not be given in Bengali. As a result,
they had to face economic problems.
They arrested several students from that general strike. Among those arrested was
Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. However, the movement was not stopped. The students could
not be suppressed in any way. When Muhammad Ali Jinnah came to East Bengal after
the creation of the first state of Pakistan, Khwaja Nazimuddin invited the students to
discuss their demands. After meeting them, Khwaja Nazimuddin accepted the demands
of the students. One of the six-point demands of the students is that they should accept
a proposal on Bengali in the April constitution and that Bengali should be given equal
status in Urdu as well as in job interviews. Bengali should be declared as the official
language in place of English in East Bengal. Mohammad Ali Jinnah came to East
Bengal and said in his speech that if there is more than one state language then
solidarity will not come in the state. However, this is not true; Because 18 languages
​were practiced in India. After the speech of Muhammad Ali Jinnah, on the one hand, the
movement came to a halt because Jinnah died in 1948. But in 1952 the movement
started again. Because, Khwaja Nazimuddin again declared that the state language of
Pakistan will be Urdu. 
 
 
4. What is the Basic Democracy? Why did President Ayub Khan introduce it in the 
Pakistani polity?  
Ans:​ ​During the period of General Ayub Khan in 1959, he introduced a new system of
government whose name was basic democracies system. The goal was to bring democracy to the
doorsteps of the people and to have "direct participation of the people managing their affairs
through representative bodies not far from their villages and Mohallas”. Ayub Khan introduced
basic democracy after trashing a truly democratic constitution through martial law. He had only
one objective: To institute a system that could be guided at the will of the rulers. Ayub Khan
stated that the system suited the “genius” of the people of Pakistan because he did not believe
that the directly elected parliamentary system was suitable for the country.

Basic democracies specified a provincial development advisory council for each wing. The most
important feature of the basic democracy system was that it formed the national electoral college
consisting of 80,000 basic democrats. Under the Presidential ordinance, a five-tiered hierarchical
system of local-self-government was introduced, namely Union Councils, Thana Councils of
Tehsil Councils, District Councils, Divisional Councils, and Provincial Development Advisory
Council. Of the five councils created by the Basic Democracies Order only the union and district
councils had been given specific functions. The divisional and thana council performed mostly
coordinate functions. These basic democrats were democratically elected public representatives
who served in the Divisional, District, Tehsil or Union councils) from East and West Pakistan for
the elections of President, members of the national assembly and the provincial assemblies.

He introduced this new system in the midst of democracy and dictatorship. He introduces Basic
Democracy to legitimize his rule and introduce a new class and also there was some religious
cause. He argued that Western-style constitutions are unsuited to new, underdeveloped nations.
Therefore, he introduced basic democracies which will be the foundation stone of a new political
system in the country and which will be the interim system. But the main purpose of basic
democracy was to control politics and stay in power.

6. What do you know about the Agartala Conspiracy Case? Why did the government
compel to withdraw the case?
Ans: ​ We see outside of this is the Indo-Pakistani war of 1965, which brought to us a 
message that the people of West Pakistan were indifferent to any interest in East 
Bengal; For example, they were indifferent in all areas, be it defense or economy or 
politics. When India and Pakistan fought, they took all the troops to West Pakistan, at 
that time East Bengal was unprotected. As a result of which we see that a new 
awakening was created from East Bengal in the context of the Six Point Movement of 
Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. The people of East Bengal wanted to take 
responsibility for themselves, they wanted to achieve self-sufficiency in defense, they 
also wanted to achieve self-sufficiency in economics and politics. So they want full 
autonomy. 
 
East Bengal's participation in the posts of army, navy and air force officers was very 
low. Despite the large population of East Pakistan, the participation of East Bengal was 
very low and those who were in the army, air force, navy were deprived of many 
facilities; Even promotion and posting were depriving them of these. For this reason, on 
the one hand, as the political uprising was created in the sixties, a similar thinking began 
to work among the Army, Navy, Air Force officers who were in-service officers and 
retired officers. And that is that if we want to establish the rights of the people of East 
Bengal, they have no choice but to secede from West Pakistan. This attitude was 
groomed among the people and among the in-service and retired Army, Navy officers. In 
order to secede from West Pakistan, the Bengalis in the army processors themselves 
started talking about how to actually get rid of West Pakistan. In such a conversation, 
there was not much communication between them. But it was caught by the Defense 
Force Intelligence Pakistan. For this reason, the government of Pakistan filed a case 
against them in December 1966 and that case was called the Agartala Conspiracy case. 
The official name of this case is ‘State vs Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and others’. 
 
In the end, the Pakistani government could no longer pursue the case. When a mass 
uprising broke out here, the government was forced to release everyone unconditionally. 
On the one hand there was the support of the people towards Bangabandhu and the 
Awami League. But the Pakistani government was scared because of this support. For 
this reason, the government of Pakistan filed the case. There is no way to deny that the 
officers of East Bengal were involved in it at least to some extent. However, it was 
caught by Pakistani intelligence. When the Pakistani government realized this, they 
secretly arrested about 1,500 people from all over Pakistan. However, on January 26, 
1966, the Pakistani government announced in a press conference that it had arrested 
only 26 people because of their involvement in the case. The government first decided 
that it would punish the one and a half thousand people who were arrested by issuing 
court martial against all of them; That is, He will punish them with death. But later, since 
the election of 1970, Ayub Khan thought about it. He decided that Ayub Khan would be 
elected in 1970 after 1975; For this reason, before the election, if the people of East 
Bengal are killed in this way, what will be the consequence, he said, that the main 
accused, that is, 35 people, will be punished by civil law. A special tribunal was formed 
after an amendment was made in the penal code to that end for the disposal of the 
case. The tribunal consisted of Justice S.A. Rahman (former Chief Justice of Pakistan), 
Justice M.R. Khan and Justice Masumul Hakim. The government engaged former 
foreign minister and eminent lawyer Manzur Qadir as the Public Prosecutor to fight for 
the state cause. On the other hand the supporters of Awami League hired renowned 
Queen’sCounsel of the English bar,Thomas William to defend Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. 
Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was enrolled as accused No.1. The hearing of the case started 
on 19 June 1968. The tribunal started proceedings of the case in a highly protected 
chamber inside Dhaka Cantonment. A charge-sheet consisting of 100 paragraphs 
against the 35 accused was placed before the tribunal. There were 227 witnesses 
including 11 approvers. However, 4 approvers were declared hostile by the government. 
The government was bent on identifying Sheikh Mujibur Rahman as a separatist and an 
Indian agent thereby arousing public support against him. But the approvers on the 
witness-box declared that the government had compelled them by threat and 
persecution to submit false evidence in its favor. Thus the governmental machination 
against the accused got exposed. The case caused a great turbulence in East Pakistan. 
The student community started a united movement against the Ayub regime. They 
defied the section 144 imposed by the police, broke the barricades put by the East 
Pakistan Rifles and came out to the streets in thousands. The students issued 11 
points, which led to a mass uprising and eventually forced the government to drop the 
Agartala conspiracy case. 
 
 

7. Discuss the background of the election of 1970. How did the Awami League achieve 
a landslide victory in the first & last general elections in East Pakistan? 
Ans: The Agartala conspiracy case led to resentment in the minds of the people of East 
Bengal led by the student society of East Bengal. The mass uprising of 1969 was led by 
the student society. The military coup in Pakistan as a result of the 1969 uprising led to 
the downfall of Ayub Khan, the 12-year-old ruler from 1956-1970, in March 1969. Ayub 
Khan was then forced to hand over power to Yahya Khan. Yahya Khan was then the 
Chief of Army Staff. The transfer of power forced Yahya Khan to hold elections in 1970. 
Then in 1970 the first general election was held in Pakistan. Pakistan was established in 
1947 on the basis of the 1947 elections. But after the establishment of Pakistan, they 
did not go for election politics. They have tried to control politics. In the 23 years before 
1970, no elections were held in Pakistan on the basis of adult franchises. No elections 
were held in Balochistan. However, elections were held once in East Pakistan in 1954, in 
Sindh in 1953 and in Punjab in 1951 on the basis of Adult Franchise. When Yahya Khan 
came to power, he said that he had been in power for a very short time and that he 
would hand over power to the winner of the 1970 elections and leave again. The people 
of East Bengal and West Bengal agreed with his words. 
 
A legal framework order laid down the constitution of the Jatiya Sangsad and the 
provincial assemblies, the policy of elections, the date of polling, the rules of procedure 
and the basic principles of the constitution. 13 seats will be reserved for women and the 
remaining 300 seats will be directly elected. The number of seats will be arranged 
according to the population of the country. According to the 1971 census, the seats will 
be divided between the two parts of Pakistan. As the population of East Bengal is 56%, 
out of the total 300 seats, 162 seats will be reserved for East Bengal. And from the 13 
women's seats, 6 seats were allotted for the women of East Bengal. In other words, a 
total of 189 seats were allotted for East Bengal in the National Assembly, while the 
remaining 144 seats were allotted for West Pakistan. The military government said the 
constitution must be drafted within 120 days of the election; If this parliament fails to 
write a constitution then this parliament will be dissolved and the constitution they will 
write will be authenticated by the president. And the president was Yahya Khan, so 
many political parties did not want to participate in the election and many other political 
parties did not participate, including Maulana Bhasani's political party. No court can 
prosecute Yahya Khan's legal framework order as it was then under military rule. 
Although many political parties abandoned this election, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur 
Rohoman participated in this election. Because he believed that since everyone could 
vote one by one, East Bengal would definitely win. Twenty-four political parties were 
ready to participate in the 1980 elections. There were about 1958 candidates for 300 
seats in the National Assembly elections. The symbol of the Awami League's election 
was the boat and the symbol of the Pakistani People's Party's election was the arrow. 
 
Then the military government Yahya Khan did not directly interfere in this election. 
However, they gave a lot of money to many political parties, especially religious ones, so 
that they could get some seats. What will happen if we get some seats is that no single 
political party will be able to form a government, a hanging parliament will be formed. 
Then it will be very easy for the military to control this government, then they will be able 
to stay in power. Due to this a large amount of money was given to various political 
parties based on religion. East Bengal was allotted 162 seats in the National Assembly. 
Out of those 182 National Assembly seats, Awami League alone won 180 seats. As a 
result, they also got the 6 women's seats that were allotted for East Bengal. In other 
words, Awami League won 16 out of 189 seats. The Awami League, the most popular 
party in East Bengal, has not won a single seat in West Pakistan. They contested in four 
seats. Similarly, neither Bhutto nor the Pakistan People's Party fielded any candidates in 
East Bengal. So in the 1970 election, it became clear to the people that the politics of 
the two regions are completely different, with no resemblance to each other. All Muslim 
League groups won only 36 of the 300 seats in West Pakistan. The number of seats in 
the single Pakistani parliament is 313. Those who get 157 seats will form the 
government, they are the majority. So Awami League got 16 seats there. So the Awami 
League will form the government of Pakistan. For this reason, the military ruler of 
Pakistan, Yahya Khan, sent a congratulatory message to Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, calling 
him the future Prime Minister. The provincial council of East Bengal also had 300 seats, 
of which the Awami League won 26 seats. No representative of the East Pakistan 
Awami League has won in the Provincial Assembly in West Pakistan. In the end, the 
general public can understand that the politics of East Bengal and West Bengal are 
completely different because no representative of East Pakistan has won in West 
Pakistan and no representative of West Pakistan has won in East Bengal.